The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
by Ryeloza
Summary: Lynette recruits her friends for a little errand at the mall.  A pre-series Christmas fic.


**Disclaimer: **_Desperate Housewives_ absolutely isn't mine, and I have no plans to pretend it is.

**Story Summary: **Lynette recruits her friends for a little errand at the mall. A pre-series Christmas fic.

**The Most Wonderful Time of the Year**

A story by **Ryeloza**

"This whole mall Santa thing is a racket," said Lynette, sitting down on a bench with a relieved groan. Two hours on her feet in a crowded mall while eight months pregnant was more than she'd bargained for today. "Ten bucks for a picture I could just take with my own camera."

"Yes," agreed Susan. "But look how excited your kids are."

Lynette smiled, glancing over at her boys and giving them a little wave. Parker was practically jumping up and down in excitement, but the twins had their heads together rather conspiratorially. That, of course, was worrisome, but as she'd been reminding them daily that Santa was watching them, she doubted they'd try anything ten feet from where he sat.

"Yeah, they've been looking forward to this since Thanksgiving," she mentioned in an off-handed way. "This was as long as I could avoid it."

Truthfully, she had purposely been putting off this day until she could drag Tom with her, but then she'd stupidly told the kids that they would go today a week in advance. Consequently, when Tom had been called away on an unexpected business trip (and couldn't get out of it even when threatened with violence), Lynette was trapped in a promise. She'd tried to gingerly back out of it—"Maybe we can go see Santa next weekend"—but she'd been met with a near mutiny, and realized she had no choice. Fortunately, the girls had agreed to come lend moral support, and between the five of them, wrangling the kids hadn't been quite as horrible as usual. Gaby stood in line with the boys now, a job she had been coerced into after she let Parker down half of a soft drink.

Bree smiled knowingly. "You'll miss it in a few years."

Lynette raised an eyebrow, letting her eyes flicker from her stomach back to Bree in an incredulous manner. "I'm thinking not anytime soon."

"You'd be surprised. Andrew was only five."

"Five? Really?" She looked back to the twins, who were only two months from their sixth birthday, and frowned. "That seems young."

"Well he was an awfully logical child. I'm sure you still have a few years left with the twins. And Parker—"

"Questions everything and everybody."

"Oh sweetie." Bree rubbed her arm comfortingly, and Lynette dimly realized that her eyes were a bit damp. She rolled her eyes, wiping away the evidence and cursing her hormones. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"You didn't. I'm not." She chuckled in what she hoped was a convincing manner. "Stupid pregnancy."

Susan sighed. "I miss having a baby around. Julie's going to be thirteen next month. A teenager. Then she's going to leave and I'm going to be alone."

Lynette exchanged a look with Bree and Mary Alice. Since Susan's divorce had been finalized, she'd been prone to these outbursts on a regular basis. They occurred without warning and usually had little to do with what they were talking about. They always ended the same way.

"You're not going to die alone."

Susan sniffled dramatically. "Who said anything about dying?"

"Oh," said Lynette remorselessly. "Didn't we get there yet?"

Mary Alice shot her a dirty look, and Lynette just shrugged. It wasn't as though she didn't feel bad for Susan, she just wished she'd get it through her head that she was really much better off without Karl. This was a fact all of them agreed on privately, though none of them had dared voice the opinion. As usual, Mary Alice smoothed over Lynette's crassness. "Susan, anytime you're ready, you know I'd be happy to set you up."

"I know. I just… I don't think I'm there yet."

"Of course not," agreed Bree, with a disdainful shake of her head. "It's only been two months. No one moves on that quickly."

Usually there was more to the cheering-up-Susan speech, but Lynette cut it short with a quick exclamation. "The boys are up. You guys help me up?"

Mary Alice stood, grasping Lynette's hand and helping her stand, and she approached the little fence that surrounded Santa's house just as her boys broke free of Gaby and practically tackled St. Nick. With a huffy sigh, Gaby hurried over and glared at each of them in turn. "Get your jollies while you can, ladies," she fumed. "That is the last time I'm dealing with any of your kids."

"You told me you'd babysit next weekend."

"I swear to God, Lynette, if you make me follow through on that I will give them so much sugar that they'll be bouncing off the walls for a month."

Susan snorted. "As if that would be anything different."

Lynette scowled, and Susan offered a contrite apology.

The boys, after a bit of a scuffle about who actually got to sit on Santa's knee and who had to stand next to him, all seemed to be yammering at once. Santa took this stride, obviously trying to get them to speak one at a time, but then, without warning, Preston reached out and yanked on his beard. The fake mat of hair came off right in his hand, and in a moment, chaos broke out. Parker's eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open, Porter gave a scream of delight, and Preston jumped off of Santa's lap with a very guilty look on his face.

"Oh shit," muttered Lynette as Preston took off in a full run, beard still in hand. He made a beeline for the exit. "Catch him!"

Bree was the closest, and she caught Preston around the waist as he tried to make his escape. Most of the kids around them seemed torn between awe, fear and laughter, but the mothers were glaring with universally sour expressions. Ignoring this, Lynette took Preston firmly by the shoulder, pulling the beard out of his hand and giving it to Gaby, who held it at arms length like it was dead animal.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Give it back."

"Oh." She looked to Bree, Mary Alice and Susan hopefully, but none of them seemed any more eager to take care of the task for her. With a little pout, she stalked back toward Santa.

"What were you thinking?" Lynette asked Preston. "Why would you do that?"

"Porter said that wasn't really Santa, and I said he was, and then Porter said he wasn't, and I said he was—"

"Yeah, okay. I get the idea."

From the line, one of the mothers gave a distasteful snort, and almost involuntarily, Lynette's eyes drifted over to her. She had her hands over her daughter's eyes as though the child had been scarred by the sight of a beardless Santa. "You should really learn to control your children."

"And you might want to stop treating yours like she's made of glass."

"Okay!" Susan wrapped her arm around Lynette, physically turning her away from the other woman (whose expression suggested she wasn't going to drop the fight), and Mary Alice took a hold of Preston's hand. "We're just going to go. We're very sorry."

"I'm not sorry," snapped Lynette.

"Neither am I," agreed Preston. "That was cool! Did you see Santa's face?"

"That's not Santa, dummy."

"Yeah, Mommy," said Parker, a thread of genuine worry in his tone. He pulled out of Bree's grasp to come up and take her hand instead. "Where's the real Santa?"

"He's at the North Pole," said Mary Alice, not missing a beat. Bree nodded in agreement. "That's just one of his helpers."

"Really?" Parker looked up at her just as she finished mouthing an affectionate "thank you" to her friends. "Is that true, Mommy?"

"Of course it's true," said Porter. "That's what I told you in the first place. And _I_ was right."

"Well I didn't get to tell him what I wanted."

Gaby groaned loudly. "Jeez, kid. Write him a letter. It's not the end of the world."

As all four of the adults turned to Gaby with various looks of amusement and annoyance on their faces, the boys completely ignored her. They were too busy squabbling, not even listening to the adults any longer. Lynette sighed loudly. "How many more years did you guys say this was going to last?"

Laughing, Bree linked her arm through Lynette's and gave her a fond smile. "You're going to miss it when it's over."

With a warm but exasperated look at her boys, Lynette nodded. "Yeah," she agreed. "You're right about that."


End file.
